


Remember

by Vermin_Disciple



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: But not all that angsty considering, Death from Old Age, Gen, Sad and Sweet, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27095149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vermin_Disciple/pseuds/Vermin_Disciple
Summary: "I should have died a long time ago," said McCoy, reflectively. "It's just not natural, a human being living to 140. You start to feel like you've been old most of your life.""Then why," asked Spock, "do you keep inventing new methods of replacing your organs?"
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51
Collections: Trektober 2020





	Remember

**Author's Note:**

> This scene is from something I started years ago and will probably never finish, but it works just fine on its own. I’d forgotten about it until I started going through my ST folder for potential Trektober prompt fills, and I thought it was kind of a shame to let it languish among my many WIP files. [Also posted on Tumblr](https://vermin-disciple.tumblr.com/post/632369799959281664/trektober-day-18-waiting-by-biobed).
> 
> Prompt, Day 18: Waiting By Biobed

"I'm dying, Spock."

"Doctor, in the past five years you have made that claim precisely 206 times. I suspect that your limited diagnostic capabilities have been further degraded by increasing age."

McCoy chuckled. "And you're the same cold-blooded computer you've always been. But whether you believe me or not, I am still dying, and I'm afraid none of my beads and rattles are going to change that."

McCoy's hands, once so steady, were beginning to shake. Spock took one of them in his, appalled at how cold it was, in spite of the sultry Georgia air, and how weak the responding squeeze felt.

"I should have died a long time ago," said McCoy, reflectively. "It's just not natural, a human being living to 140. You start to feel like you've been old most of your life." 

"Then why," asked Spock, "do you keep inventing new methods of replacing your organs?" 

McCoy laughed again, this time bringing on another of his increasingly frequent coughing fits. "Trying to stay alive is a hard habit to break, Spock." 

He remembered another vigil, another prone figure on a bed before him, ominously still in the dim light. He remembered the wave of concern and sorrow that washed over him, the cautious stirring of newfound hope, the way his voice had nearly cracked when he'd said, _"I'm going to tell you something that I never thought I'd hear myself say…_

No, _he_ hadn't said that. The memory was vivid but it wasn't his. It was that prone figure that had been him - and not him. All that was truly him had been reduced to a spark in McCoy's head, seeing through McCoy's eyes and listening through his ears, and being drenched in the torrential downpour of his raw human emotions. 

_But it seems that I've missed you. And I don't know if I could stand to lose you again._

McCoy could say a thing like that, but he couldn't. Such hyperbole was illogical. He _could_ stand to lose McCoy, just as they'd both been able to stand losing Jim, all those years ago. 

"Doctor… _Leonard_ —"

"Oh, don't you go calling me that, Mr. Spock. If we start letting go of that professional distance _now_ , we're going to end up in one of those emotional scenes that you're so fond of. Besides, I've never much cared for my first name." 

"Is that why Jim always called you Bones?" 

"For a man who claims to be unaffected by emotions, you sure do know how to provoke them in others." 

"It can be very useful when dealing with your species. I have had many years to practice, and some particularly emotive specimens to practice on." 

McCoy snorted. "Who're you going to find to argue with you now?"

"Perhaps I shall give it up altogether. It has been a long time since it served any logical purpose."

"Maybe, but it was fun."

"Fun?"

"Fun! Having a good time! And I know damn well you understand that concept by now, you stubborn, pointy-eared, green-blooded son-of-a-bitch." 

"You neglected to include 'hobgoblin'," said Spock, helpfully. 

No one alive could claim to know him as well as Leonard McCoy did, not even his own father. Jim Kirk had seemed to understand him completely from the moment they met, but he'd been dead for 80 years now, and McCoy, who had seemed at times to willfully _mis_ understand him, had now spent more than a century as his comrade and rival and counselor and antagonist and more than anything else – his friend. No one had seen more of him at his worst, or his best. 

“I was saving it for later.” McCoy coughed again, more weakly than before. “But there isn’t going to be a later, this time. Now, promise me you won’t go getting yourself killed on Romulus. I won’t be there to save you, this time.” 

“I can make no such promise, Doctor. As you well know.” 

McCoy’s breathing grew ever more ragged, as if each exhalation were expelling some ineffable part of his life force. 

“No, I suppose not.” McCoy raised his tremoring hand, gnarled from a lifetime of work healing others, and pressed his fingers to Spock’s temple. “Remember,” he said, and closed his eyes. 


End file.
